Has anyone developed Project Management with A5

[Tommy Thompson]

I need to track several projects within my organization. I was thinking about using A5 but did not want to re-invent the wheel if someone has done that before. Specifically, would it be possible to generate gantt charts.

[Thontlb]

tracking

Get a simple project managment tool. You'll spend way too much time building such an app with Alpha. I'm not asaying that it can't be done, but I think the lack of responses anwers the question

[Tommy Thompson]

I agree

I totally agree. I found several free excel templates that work just fine.

[CALocklin]

I used to be a project manager. (My most enjoyable, but also most time-consuming, project was the 1999 Mustang headlights and taillights. The first prototype high mount stop lamp, the one in the middle of the trunk lid, was actually built in my basement because the initial parts didn't fit properly and needed some filing before they could be assembled.)

I found that building timing charts was (a) a great way to get an initial understanding of the overall project and the relationships of the various tasks, (b) great for impressing management, (c) (something too many people aren't aware of) a great way to waste a huge amount of time. Show me a project manager who has a detailed, accurate, and up-to-date timing chart and I'll show you someone who isn't managing his project. Most good project managers I knew had a timing chart that was accurate enough to show key issues correctly and the rest was often just a best guess. Unfortunately, I also knew a few who insisted on having other people put together the timing chart - see item (a) to understand why this is a bad idea. If they wanted to have someone else maintain it after the initial build, I might have accepted this as "not great but acceptable." The PM learns far more through the process of actually building the initial chart than by reviewing what someone else has done for them.

I found that the real work was based on the issue list. Unfortunately, the issue list is usually done in, you guessed it, Excel! I was astounded at the amount of time people spent just closing an excel item. For example:
1. Add a completion date.
2. Change the status to completed.
3. Add/Change the color of the text to indicate a completed item.
4. Leave the item in the same "sheet" but move it to the bottom of the list for 30 days so it shows on reports.
5. Try to remember to move it to the "closed" sheet after 30 days so it doesn't show on reports any more but is still available for review.

A few more issues:
1. When sending meeting notices, just send the whole issue list to everyone and let them figure out which ones are theirs because it's too hard to separate them. (Of course, we all know that each person will review the whole list to find out what items they have to report on - NOT!)
2. When checking for items that are due or will become due very soon, just review the whole list because it's too difficult to sort them. (OK, you can sort them but there's a good chance you will mess up the whole thing during the sort process so be sure to keep another copy and don't mix them up.)
3. Adding sub-assignments to issues can be extremely difficult to accomplish.
4. When there are multiple projects to be tracked, there will be multiple spreadsheets and you will have to open a new one whenever someone asks you about one that you are not working on at that specific moment. In one of my PM jobs I had 5 different projects at once.

Do you see a need for a database yet??

If so, check out my PTracker program. I found this especially useful when handling multiple projects and still use it to track my database projects.

By the way:

Closing an issue in PTracker consists of finding the specific issue - takes 10 seconds or less - and typing a "C" in the status box.

The default 'closed' date is "today" but you can change it if necessary. When you decide to print a status report, just enter the number of days of 'closed' items to include and that will be handled automatically - they will even be displayed in italics so it's easy to see what was completed.

[Marcel Kollenaar]

:D Nice text, Cal